ALTHOUGH the actual home of Bentley is the old Cheshire railway town of Crewe, many would agree that the marque’s cars are spiritually at home on the Côte d’Azur where, during the golden era of the Jazz Age, the rich and famous would frequently travel by Flying B in search of seasonal sun and frolics.
Among the best known of these people was Bentley Boy extraordinaire Woolf Barnato, who famously raced Le Train Bleu from Cannes to Calais in March 1930, behind the wheel of his Mulliner-bodied Speed Six formal saloon.
The high-speed dash came about after Barnato hosted a steak-and-kidney pie dinner in the south of France for fellow Bentley owners, during which he wagered that he would not only beat the train from one end of the country to the other but would be relaxing in London’s Royal Automobile Club while the locomotive was still steaming towards Calais—a feat he managed with a full four minutes to spare.
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